Ukraine fixed-asset investment decline slows to 6% in 9M15

Ukraine’s investments in fixed assets in 9M15 declined 6% yoy, the State Statistics Service reported on Nov 24. This was an improvement from the 9.2% yoy drop in 1H15 (and 23.0% drop yoy in 9M14).  Catering (-36% yoy), trade (25% yoy), real estate (-24% yoy) and industry (22% yoy) suffered the most. At the same time, investments in telecommunications (3.3x), state administration and defense (2.0x) and agriculture (+18% yoy) significantly improved. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions led the investments decline with -79% yoy and -64% yoy for 9M15, respectively. 

Alexander Paraschiy: Investments in fixed assets statistics look encouraging and somewhat better than we expected. To a large extent, the modest decline (-0.3% yoy) in 3Q15 was on the back of a low comparative base (in 3Q14, investments in fixed assets plunged 31.9% yoy compared to -11.8% yoy in 2Q14). However, investments inflow, such as telecommunications projects, also played an important role. For sure, we cannot expect investments growth in 2015 given the still complicated economic environment. However, the investments decline will be less than 10% yoy, which is better than we initially projected (-17.5% yoy).